Fiction Reviews: 7/27/2009

Det. Sgt. Logan McRae, who's still recovering from the bloody events of 2008's Flesh, investigates a series of brutal attacks on Polish immigrants in MacBride's excellent fifth novel to feature the Aberdeen, Scotland, cop. A local xenophobe, bitter about the influx of Polish workers, appears to be the culprit, but when one of the city's local crime bosses is assaulted, McRae begins to wonder if the violence is the result of a brewing turf war between Scottish crime figures and encroaching Eastern European thugs. Meanwhile, McRae and foul-mouthed Det. Insp. Roberta Steele are stuck babysitting Rory Simpson, a pedophile who becomes an inadvertent—but key—witness. MacBride's liberal use of humor, especially in the often slapstick rapport between McRae and the crusty Steel, never detracts from the action. A lesser writer would have fumbled such a complexly layered plot, but MacBride is in his element the more dark and twisted the story—and characters—become. (Oct.)

This suite of five stories hits all of Ishiguro's signature notes, but the shorter form mutes their impact. In “Crooner,” Tony Gardner, a washed-up American singer, goes sloshing through the canals of Venice to serenade his trophy wife, Lindy. The narrator, Jan, is a hired guitar player whose mother was a huge fan of Tony, but Jan's experience playing for Tony fractures his romantic ideals. Lindy returns in the title story, which finds her in a luxury hotel reserved for celebrity patients recovering from cosmetic surgery. The narrator this time is Steve, a saxophonist who could never get a break because of his “loser ugly” looks. Lindy idly strikes up a friendship with Steve as they wait for their bandages to come off and their new lives to begin. In the final story, “Cellists,” an unnamed saxophonist narrator who, like Jan, plays in Venice's San Marco square, observes the evolving relationship of a Hungarian cello prodigy after he meets an American woman. The stories are superbly crafted, though they lack the gravity of Ishiguro's longer works (Never Let Me Go; Remains of the Day), which may leave readers anticipating a crescendo that never hits. (Sept.)

Sabatini debuts with a love story set against the backdrop of Mugabe's Zimbabwe, from its independence in the 1980s to the decline of democracy in the 1990s. Lindiwe Bishop is 14 when her neighbor, 17-year-old Ian McKenzie, is charged with killing his mother. Lindiwe's shy, at the top of her class and from the first black family that settled in Bulawayo after integration. Ian is boisterous, a dropout and from the last white family remaining in the neighborhood. They only meet briefly before he is jailed, and when he's released a year and a half later they strike up a secret friendship that largely consists of Lindiwe listening to Ian talk. Their friendship endures another hiatus—this one for 10 years—when Ian goes to South Africa, and when the two reconnect, Lindiwe is a spitfire. Subplots of varying interest—the question of Ian's fidelity, whether one of Lindiwe's friends is shacking up with corrupt officials—crop up, but most lack resolution or are abandoned soon after they're raised. Sabatini's writing is fine and shows the potential in this developing talent. (Sept.)

The crazed conclusion of Johnson's Million Dollar trilogy opens with a literal bang. Freddy Ford shoots millionaire Nate Kenny and Nate's ex-wife, Monica, at Nate's Chicago mansion and kidnaps Nate's three-year-old adopted son, Nathaniel. The reason? Nate reneged on rewarding him for his part in a blackmail scheme that led to the arrest of Freddy's best friend, Lewis Waters, in the previous book, The Million Dollar Deception. Lewis was getting too cozy with Monica, whom Nate is eager to remarry. As a result of their serious gunshot wounds, Nate and Monica (who's in a coma) miss Lewis's hearing, at which he's set free. In a weird twist of fate, Lewis agrees to help Nate find Freddy, who's holding Nathaniel for $5 million ransom, if Nate will do Lewis a favor. Meanwhile, Nate's spurned lover, Daphanie Coleman, pregnant with another man's child, plots her revenge. The rushed ending suggests the duplicitous Nate could return to commit further mischief in a sequel. (Sept.)

McDermid's exhilarating fifth novel to feature Det. Chief Insp. Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill (after The Torment of Others) finds Tony in the hospital after being attacked by an ax-wielding patient. Tony's eager to distract himself with Carol's latest case—the death of popular football star Robbie Bishop from ricin poisoning. Carol and her team frantically sift through Bishop's life, trying to find a link between the sports hero and the obscure poison. When an explosion rocks Bradfield's football stadium, Carol and Tony must consider whether Bishop's murder was an act of terrorism. As Carol butts heads with Britain's anti-terrorism unit, Tony works to unravel the motives behind the attacks, and his conclusions put him at odds with Carol like never before. McDermid nimbly weaves current events—the stadium bombing is eerily similar to the 2005 London tube attacks—with the ever-evolving personal and professional relationship between Tony and Carol. (Sept.)

At the start of this engaging first in a new series from bestseller Cussler (Inca Gold) and Blackwood (An Echo of War), Sam Fargo and his wife, Remi, trade quips while wading waist deep in a Maryland swamp in search of hidden treasure. The couple stumble across a WWII Nazi minisub, which contains an intact bottle of wine, apparently part of a collection known as Napoleon's Lost Cellar. The bottle has a riddle hidden in its label, the solution to which leads the Fargos to other lost bottles and eventually points the way to two solid gold Persian columns discovered by Napoleon and hidden in the Pennine Alps in 1800. The book's villain, Hadeon Bondaruk, who covets the columns and will do anything to get them, sends his henchmen after the Fargos. The clever duo manage to stay one small step ahead of the hired killers until everyone arrives at the inevitable boffo ending. Solidly in the Cussler tradition, this adventure thriller is sure to please new fans and old. (Sept.)

The final volume in Hawks's fantasy thriller series, the Fourth Realm trilogy, brings to an end the struggle between the forces of evil, the Brethren-run empire known as the Tabula, and those of good—the Travelers, Harlequins and other fighters of the Resistance. The first book, The Traveler, promised, and delivered, much; the second, The Dark River, was bleak and a bit of a disappointment. With the third, Hawks has returned, somewhat, to the excitement of the first, though those expecting a final, titanic battle to decide the fate of the world will come away frustrated. In the end, the action scenes are too few and too brief, and the explorations into the other Realms don't come to much of anything. Some fans might wish the author had spent less time on the easy-to-understand philosophical underpinnings (e.g., “freedom is the essence of our lives—not surveillance and control”) and more time on swinging swords. Newcomers should read the series in order. (Sept.)

Stunning visual descriptions link the stories of four artists in crisis in Hall's fourth novel (after Daughters of the North), but marginal, cross-generational relationships are what ground the book. Giorgio is a well-known painter and hermit in Italy in the 1960s, the near-blind Annette his favorite primary school student. Peter is a 50-something landscape artist in England, and Peter's daughter, Susan, a talented photographer and curator. Giorgio has cancer and for his final days tackles one last painting of his constant subject, colored bottles. Soon after his death, Annette tends his grave, innocent and fearful and now completely blind, fearing imaginary things like the Bestia—a demon that is depicted in her church. Thirty years later, Peter, who corresponded with Giorgio, is pinned under a boulder near his cottage, and contemplates the haunting relationship he had with his ex-wife, while in present-day London, Susan searches for feeling (through sex) after the sudden loss of her twin brother. Hall gracefully conveys a sense of the eternal through these imaginative, disconnected creatures who share the same unrelentingly contemplative disposition. (Sept.)

The late Estonian novelist is notable for his irrepressibly playful and idiosyncratic writing style, and Dickens's translation of this slim novel is a perfect example of it. Unt offers a sort of tragic origin myth of Estonia, peopled by Bertolt Brecht and his entourage as they flee from Nazi Germany to Finland in 1940. The author's license with his material is apparent from the very first sentence, which isn't even completed before Unt interrupts it to offer an italicized gloss on the novel's premise. Brecht takes up residence in a hotel in Helsinki, befriending Hella Wuolijoki, an Estonian writer who regales Brecht with her life story, while Unt, in interspersed italicized paragraphs, provides scraps of Estonia's tragic history. Brecht, meanwhile, remains supremely obsessed with himself and chews over his pet subject: dialectics. Dismissing standard conventions of plot and structure, this is a startling document in its own right—of irony, of Unt's experimental style and of the terrible (and mostly unknown to the rest of the world) hardships of Estonia during most of the 20th century. (Sept.)

In this marvelously original collection, Finger (Basic Skills) explores the nature and function of legendary outcasts, from Goliath, initially ridiculed for his giantism before he became a savior of the Philistines, to Vincent Van Gogh, tortured madman and impoverished artist caught in a bureaucratic vacuum as he waits for his Social Security benefits. In “Helen and Frida,” Finger imagines with absurd relish Helen Keller and Frida Kahlo featured in the same empowering movie (Helen is played by Jean Harlow). In “The Artist and the Dwarf,” Finger configures an elaborate inner life for the dwarf Mari Barbola in Velázquez's Las meninas, juxtaposed with the dialogue between a medical illustrator in Auschwitz and her doomed subject, the famous circus dwarf Lia Graf. Most ambitious is “Moby Dick, or the Leg,” in which Finger suggests a touching, untoward intimacy between Ishmael and Captain Ahab. Brisk, inventive and intelligent, these stories do their own thing, and do it well. (Sept.)

In this engrossing collection—sometimes intense, at other times darkly humorous—debut author Crucet portrays the daily challenges, heartbreak and family ties that penetrate Hialeah, a working-class Cuban-American neighborhood in Miami. In “El Destino Hauling,” a young girl pays witness to a night-long family funeral for a father who was run over by his son, perhaps by intent. “The Next Move” follows a grandfather left to struggle through the day without his wife while she's visiting family in Cuba. In “Men Who Punched Me in the Face,” a woman repeatedly drawn to abusive men convinces herself she enjoys being hit. A story set in the Cuban countryside finds a young woman struggling to make ends meet with just three prized possessions: a rooster, a bar of soap and Kotex maxi pads. Crucet details vividly the daily struggle that leads Cubans to prize their heritage above much else, but also illuminates a powerful need to escape the past. (Sept.)

Based on the life of a Qing dynasty princess, this engrossing debut gives the rebellious Eastern Jewel a sensuous, unsentimental voice that draws admiration despite remorseless selfishness. In 1914 Manchuria, the curious, headstrong eight-year-old is sent to live with her father's blood brother Kawashima, who adopts her and renames her Yoshiko. She settles into her new life as a second-tier family member, at odds with the stepmother she secretly longs to please. Precocious, rebellious and beautiful, Yoshiko loses her virginity to her adopted grandfather at 15 and is seduced by her adopted father a year later; her further sexual adventures eventually leave her sterile. Inevitably, Kawashima marries her off, to a Mongolian prince. Unhappy in Mongolia, Yoshiko escapes to Tokyo, where she becomes a professional mistress, and then to Shanghai. As Japan and China tumble into war, one of Yoshiko's new lovers recruits her as a spy; American reporter Jack Stone soon arrives to further complicate matters of loyalty and righteousness. This lush, challenging portrait of a woman who dared to make her own choices—bad though they were—in terrible, oppressive times also makes a steamy historical beach read. (Sept.)

Young, headstrong widow Anjali Kapadia runs her parent's chic boutique in New Jersey's “Little India,” but she's the last to find out that their store is financially insolvent. When her parents bring in her wealthy, controlling Uncle Jeevan to rescue the business, Anjali is initially resistant to his changes, but soon has to admit that they're working—and that she's falling for her uncle's mysterious business partner, Rishi Shah. Focusing on the immigrant experience, culture clash (and resolution) and family ties, Bantwal has a forgettable story, and her Little India doesn't do much to distinguish itself—interesting for those unfamiliar with Indian culture but with little else to offer. Readers will wish Bantwal had done more with her appealing characters and New Jersey setting. (Sept.)

Congwen writes movingly of rural China in this newly translated “modern pastoral” coming-of-age tale (first published in English in 1936, and banned in China under Mao's regime) centered on 13-year-old Cuicui. After her mother's death, Cuicui and her grandfather, a ferryman, lead a quiet life transporting passengers across a small stream near the mountain town of Chadong. As Cuicui begins to mature, she catches the eye of the two sons of a wealthy merchant. Her meddlesome but well-intentioned grandfather encourages both of them to woo her. Although the plot rotates around Cuicui's suitors and the old man's attempts to help her make a match, at the heart of the story is the depth of love between Cuicui and her grandfather with the tranquil environment a constant presence and comfort. Congwen paints rapturous images of nature; his writing sings with the joyful sounds of peasant life. Readers not only see rural China, they also hear it—the pounding of drums during the Dragon Boat Festival, the amorous ballads exchanged between young lovers and the songs the ferryman and Cuicui sing together in this vivid window into China's past. (Sept.)

Prolific Canadian novelist Clarke finally found fame with his 2003 novel, The Polished Hoe. In this follow-up, Clarke stays true to his politically charged style, reporting various manifestations of racism through the life of a Caribbean immigrant living in Canada. Like the author, Idora Morrison is a Barbados native living in Toronto. Her deadbeat husband has left her for New York City, and her beloved teenage son has disappeared into gang life. Unable to cope, Idora loses herself in meandering stories of her life and 25 years in Toronto. She recalls daily prejudice from white Canadians, the embarrassment at her race's media degradation and her rewarding but uneasy friendship with Josephine, a white woman. Finding constant comfort in the Bible story of Jonah and the Whale, Idora finally, painfully, finds her way back to life. An introspective examination of cultural racism and the life of minorities, this detailed (though loaded) narrative should strike a chord with Clarke's audience. (Sept.)

Hilarious, raunchy soul sistahs Annette Davis and Rhoda O'Toole return in this latest wacky adventure in Monroe's God series (God Don't Play, etc.). This time, Rhoda persuades her 46-year-old BFF to have an affair since Pee Wee, Annette's husband, hasn't touched his newly svelte wife in a year. Pee Wee has cancer, but doesn't tell his wife until he's cured so she's ripe for the picking. Rhoda sees nothing wrong with discreet adultery: she's been having an affair for years with her husband Otis's best friend, Bully Bullard. Sexy caterer Louis Baines, who's 30, woos Annette with all the right moves, and Annette finds him irresistible until it turns out he's after her money. Another extreme annoyance is Rhoda's 19-year-old Naomi Campbell look-alike daughter, Jade, who wreaked havoc in Annette's life by trying to steal Pee Wee and has come home with a Mexican hottie who chickens out on marrying her. Monroe's never better than when she's writing about Annette and Rhoda, an outrageous Lucy & Ethel–style African-American comedy duo who are always getting in trouble. (Sept.)

A lack of narrative distance and interchangeable protagonists sink McCorkle's latest short story collection. The constant barbs aimed at the siblings and the cold-hearted, overmedicated mothers of the parade of ubiquitously decent and forlorn heroines in “Another Dimension,” “Going Away Shoes” and “Happy Accidents” reveal little about either the abusers or the so-called victims. Most of McCorkle's analogies and insights into human nature come from television shows and feel one note, such as when a character in “Another Dimension” owns Manolos in order to be like Sarah Jessica Parker. Too many of the protagonists are motivated by identical feelings of self-pitying vindictiveness. There is Ann in “Another Dimension,” whose relationship has soured with her abusive and manipulative brother, Jimmy, as well as Debby in “Going Away Shoes,” who sacrificed her career to care for a dying mother and spoiled siblings. McCorkle (Creatures of Habit) does manage a few heartfelt descriptions, but the pervasive venom too soon becomes toxic. (Sept.)

With a powerful immediacy, Cameron's meticulously researched historical is told by Shira, an anomalous 13th-century woman raised (and educated) like a son by her widowed father. After falling in love with and marrying the legendary Rabbi Meir ben Baruch, one of her father's most promising students, Shira's beauty and education attract the attention of a French scholar, Nicholas Donin, whose demented vendetta against Judaism threatens the lives of Jews across Europe. Shira and Meir must defend their faith and their marriage from Donin, and take a stand against the anti-Semitism choking Europe, but Shira is a passive, if touching, heroine. Shira is easy to identify with, but not very interesting. Still, readers will drink in the historical detail and be quick to forgive Shira's weaknesses for the sake of other rich characters like Donin and Baruch. (Sept.)

The plucky women in Parrella's second collection of short stories populate a Naples tipping toward depravity. Recalling early Margaret Atwood, the Italian writer employs wry observations from a feminist perspective that isn't afraid of confronting darkness. In the opener, “Run,” narrator Anna uses a terse, sarcastic voice (“I went to the hospital to kill time”) to mask her desperation after she's left by her dead partner with a child and a job in the Naples drug trade. The second story (the only one not featuring a Neapolitan woman) follows a young man who gives up classical guitar and winds up working in a criminal print shop. In “Imaginary Friend,” a married art museum publicist starts a long-distance dalliance while dealing with her daughter's pesky invisible friend; the closing story finds the disarray of a young woman's apartment renovation rivals her love life for title of biggest fiasco. Weaving fully realized fringe characters into the complex pattern of society at large is no easy feat, though Parrella's American debut certainly makes it appear so. (Sept.)

Hartwell, aka John Lee (The Flying Boy: Healing the Wounded Man), has penned an odd yet humorous novella set in Alabama about a redneck slacker who is mysteriously visited by Pu Tai, a pajama-wearing fat man nicknamed Pooh who just may be the Buddha. Pooh's been sent to Earth to rehabilitate Bubba because “[h]e's more concerned with things than with people. His mind is closed.... He worries about what he's going to get and not what he can give.” With little education and exposure to outside cultures, Bubba doesn't quite understand what Pooh is philosophizing about or why he puts his forefinger to his thumb and closes his eyes for long periods of times. Bubba has never heard of meditation, but surmises it is analogous to fishing. With his persistent modal “Trust me,” Pooh easily convinces Bubba to go on a journey to a nearby town with a few strange stops along the way. Telling the story from Bubba's point of view, with his ungrammatical English and Southern speak, establishes a solid sense of character and place, and funny anecdotes woven throughout add charm. (Sept.)

LeFlore's expressive prose captures the diverse and eloquent perspectives of the soulfully satisfying Davis women who gather to help L.A. PR whiz Chloe recover from the painful loss of her miscarriage and her brief, disastrous marriage to con man Gregorry Robinson III. Chloe returns home to St. Louis to lick her wounds; waiting for her is her struggling artist mother, Joy Ann, and her sisters—Eve, who's dating a selfish boyfriend, and Fawn, who's supposedly happily married but is contemplating a torrid affair with her minister. Other women in the Davis estrogen tree have plenty of problems, too, from health issues (some grave) to more fun-of-the-mill matters of finding their way in life. LeFlore delivers an unmistakable message of solidarity, revealing how conflicts, when confronted together, provide solace and opportunity for growth. (Sept.)

In Jacobson's addictive second Karen Vail thriller (after The 7th Victim), a serial killer spoils the FBI profiler's romantic Napa Valley vacation with boyfriend Det. Robby Hernandez. During a Silver Ridge Estates winery tour, Karen and Robby stumble over the strangled and mutilated corpse of Victoria Cameron, daughter of an influential winemaker. The narcissistic psycho responsible? John Wayne Mayfield (aka the “Napa Crush Killer”), who taunts the Napa County Major Crimes Task Force formed to catch him. As more victims are found, their windpipes crushed and bodies inflicted with postmortem wounds, the motive behind such a killing spree appears connected to conflicts within the Georges Valley American Viticultural Area board. Jacobson jolts standard serial killer fare with some twists concerning the publicity-hungry Crush Killer and insightful peeks into California's wine industry. The action culminates in a shockeroo cliffhanger. (Sept.)

Brøgger's lively and insightful novel chronicles the fates of the Jewish Løvin family as they endure the tragicomic events of the 20th century and adhere to patriarch Max's injunction: “Thou shalt be a personality.” Forging an identity, however, becomes complicated when the family is torn apart by war and forced to abandon its religious identity and nationality. Although the novel expands its breadth by including anecdotes about even the most minor players, the narrative's emphasis is on three generations of women—strong-willed Katze; her daughter, Li, who comes of age during WWII; and Li's eldest daughter Zeste. Hypocrisy, particularly with regard to gender-appropriate sexual conduct, is a major issue for all three, though each fares badly in the battle of the sexes. Attitudes toward Jewish identity—animosity, denial, ambivalence—also provide a common link among the stories. Brøgger offers readers a powerful, personal account of rapidly changing times through the lens of a family whose comedies, tragedies and absurdities are magnified by historical context and whose contemporary descendants provide a glimpse of a more hopeful future. (Sept.)

Honig's latest reads like a treatise on the failures of international aid masquerading as fiction. Insufferable narrator Erika, a writing instructor at a Boston university, tells us of Ibrahim, a bright young student from Abu Dhabi dying of cancer whose brother-in-law is a victim of ethnic profiling (which might be moving if it wasn't so expected); of university office politics; and of research programs that look on while AIDS victims get sicker and families get poorer. A contrived subplot, reinforcing that fear is all around us, relates the story of Erika's high school biology teacher, who hacked a prostitute to death. As it turns out, his son, Toby, just happens to work in Erika's department, and while Erika's empathy knows no bounds for the poor and oppressed, she is a bully who cannot stop herself from tormenting bubbly Toby, who asks little more of her than that she sample his wife's baked goods. Erika's unchallenged self-righteousness is off-putting and nearly impossible to get past. (Sept.)

Journalist Zutell debuts with a sassy, sweet tale of love lost and found. When Hollywood entertainment lawyer Alex Hirsh starts hitting the gym and sporting Armani, his wife, Alice, chalks it up to a midlife crisis. But soon Alex—now the execrable Xander—is all over the tabloids, caught canoodling with his newest client, man-eating actress Rose Maris. Cue Alice's tears, rage, breakdown, followed by a bumpy and comic road to happiness, right? Yes and no: the novel walks a familiar path, but there are plenty of details to keep the story feeling fresh. Alice is entertainingly judgmental, and the new friends she makes as a divorcée are winning: there's Nancy, who wears horrible Hallmarky sweatshirts but curses a blue streak, and Ruth, a former porn star desperate to protect her son from her past. Naturally, there's a love interest for Alice, but the real love story is the one between Alice and her precocious six-year-old daughter. And it's their sweet, complicated relationship that lifts this tale above the slew of competing family dramas. (Sept.)

In Amante's warmhearted if flat debut, the Argentine Club provides a place for Argentinean immigrants living in Southern California to keep their cultural traditions alive. For Victoria Torres, 28 and still living with her parents, it also offers the backdrop for a big surprise when her childhood friend, Eric Ortelli, shows up. He's also 28 and single and appears one night at the club like an Adonis. Victoria's immediately attracted but wary as Eric enlists her interior decorating help for his real estate business. Meanwhile, Victoria's parents suffer through marital unrest, and Eric's parents wonder if Eric's home to stay. While Victoria's an engaging lead and the romance that eventually develops between her and Eric is sweet, the story lacks passion, conflict and spice—a real shame, given the possibilities. (Sept.)

The Internet has spawned a generation exceedingly more awkward, apathetic and lost than any that has come before—at least, this seems to be the message and intention of Lin's underwhelming novella (after Eeeee Eee Eeee and Bed). Sam, a young writer with “good rankings on Amazon,” works at an organic vegan restaurant and spends much of his time checking e-mails and instant messaging with his equally detached friends while wandering downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. There is, indeed, the shoplifting of a T-shirt (and, later, earphones), the acts—both of which end in Sam's arrest—motivated by a need for “variety.” Though Lin strives to paint a portrait of a generation of disaffected youth “caught in the soft blue light of Internet Explorer,” this offers little more than lackadaisical pop culture reportage that reads mostly like a diary rendered in third person. (Sept.)

Howard (In the Colorless Round) upends some traditional literary conventions in these 14 tales of startling description and beauty. Her settings are bucolic, such as an abandoned farm house, a hilltop mansion and the ruins of a cider mill, each depicted in romantic language (“in a lavender twilight”). In the first story, “Light Carried on Air Moves Less,” a waiflike beauty stumbles upon an erotic book and apes the illustrations, all the while being watched by a curious “specter.” In “Captive Girl for Cobbled Horsemen,” the author plays on the 19th-century captive narrative, while “Seascape” tinkers with the maritime ghost story by featuring a widow who gradually comes to love the captain depicted in a painting. Many of the stories simply showcase lush, serene description, such as “The Scent of Apples,” in which a recluse tends to his apple orchard, spied on adoringly by his orphan ward. The last story, “The Tartan Detective,” features all the necessary accoutrements of detective fiction (even “the listening mechanism concealed in a potted fern!”). Howard's sensuous prose is to be savored for its own sake. (Sept.)

McDonough third novel hurls a series of highly implausible events at its conventional urban heroine, to predictable and disappointing results. Mia Saul, a single mother in Brooklyn, struggles with a tight budget, an unreliable ex-husband and a sullen 10-year-old daughter. But when an ATM in her neighborhood begins dispensing much more cash than she's requested (with the instruction to “use it well”), Mia's luck appears to be changing. At first, it seems to be everything she'd wished for—her financial burden is lifted, her daughter's mood lightens and Mia even begins to fall in love—but not all of the changes brought about are for the better. Unfortunately, character development is nonexistent, the big payoff (as it were) is a letdown, and the plot is too thin to support a checking of disbelief or the book's length. (Sept.)

Altun's second novel to be made available in the U.S. has a premise almost as intriguing as his first, Songs My Mother Never Taught Me, but the execution is less successful. Kemal Kuray's meteoric ascent to the top of the Turkish Air Force comes to an abrupt end after the engine of the plane he's piloting fails. Barely escaping serious injury, he's assigned to coordinate a secret translation project, during which he befriends Suat Altan, a technology consultant working on the project to complete his military service. Later, Kemal learns from Suat's identical twin, Fuat, that Suat, who's vanished, has left behind a cryptic note for Kemal and arranged for monthly payments to him of $5,000 a month after his retirement. Kemal spends the rest of the book seeking the purpose, as well as the true meaning, of Suat's message. If Poe's fans are meant to be enticed by the title, taken from Poe's poem “Annabel Lee,” they will find little to chew on. (Sept.)

French-Canadian Courtemanche opens his flawed second novel (after Sunday at the Pool in Kigali) with a vivid portrait of the narrator's father at dinner with his large family on Christmas Eve struck dumb and feeble by rigid Parkinson's and stuffing himself with food. André, the narrator and eldest child, confesses he has never loved his father, a tyrant he unabashedly compares to Stalin. Flashbacks reveal a violent and domineering but insecure man who jealously once claimed the prize-winning walleye André caught in a fishing competition. As the evening progresses, André concludes that his father is better off dead, but it is impossible to tell whether the idea of patricide by gourmandism, proposed as a joke that ultimately becomes part of a plan, springs from a benevolent change of heart or from Oedipal rage. The story plays out mostly in André's head, through summary and analysis rather than drama, and the lusty, repellent father is the only character who truly comes alive on the page as the novel heads toward its shocking conclusion. (Sept.)

Another entry into the popular biblical-figures-are-just-like-us genre, Popescu's chronicle looks at the life of the Virgin Mary. A hard-working Jewish teenager expelled from Nazareth with her struggling tribe, Mary has become infatuated with a visiting Roman soldier, the handsome Apella (who is, unbeknownst to Mary, Pontius Pilate, a spy for King Herod). Traveling with her rabbi-carpenter father to an artisans' fair, Mary meets a woodcarver named Joseph and is mesmerized. Confused, she journeys alone to the mountain where Joseph lost his family, seeking the counsel of God. Told in flashbacks from Mary and Pontius Pilate's viewpoint, the narrative can be hard to follow for readers without a knowledge of biblical history, though the language is of the modern-but-stilted variety, old-fashioned–sounding but easy to understand. Pocked with prurient details, such as a physician who specializes in lengthening the penis and old women employed to manually verify the virginity of brides-to-be, Romanian author Popescu isn't afraid to examine the violence and profanity of the Bible, but her tale's appeal may be limited to the devout. (Sept.)

Le Beau, who served for more than 25 years in the CIA as a clandestine operations officer, offers few surprises and a mundane plot in his debut. After someone brains American backpacker Charles Hirter while Hirter is hiking in the Upper Bavarian Alps, his CIA operative brother, Robert, travels to Bavaria to claim his body and find the truth behind his death. An elderly Nazi tips Robert off to a possible motive for the killing—during WWII something secret was concealed in a cave near where his brother's body was found. That something secret proves to be a weapon of mass destruction, which has been found by Islamic terrorists who plan to use it for an attack in Germany. Aided by his colleagues in U.S. intelligence, Robert works with the local police to stop the fanatics before they can cause massive civilian casualties. Thrillers fans won't find much tension or suspense. (Sept.)

Niffenegger follows up her spectacular The Time Traveler's Wife with a beautifully written if incoherent ghost story. When Elspeth Noblin dies, she leaves everything to the 20-year-old American twin daughters of her own long-estranged twin, Edie. Valentina and Julia, as enmeshed as Elspeth and Edie once were, move into Elspeth's London flat bordering Highgate Cemetery in a building occupied by Elspeth's lover, Robert, and the novel's most interesting character, Martin, whose wife is long suffering due to his crushing and beautifully portrayed OCD. The girls are pallid and incurious; they wander around London and spend time with Robert and Martin and Elspeth's ghost. Valentina's developing relationship with Robert arouses mild jealousy, and when Valentina pursues her interest in fashion design, Julia disapproves, which leads Valentina and Elspeth to concoct an extreme plan to allow Valentina to lead her own life. The plan, unsurprisingly, goes awry, followed by weakly foreshadowed and confusing twists that take the plot from dull to silly. While Niffenegger's gifted prose and past success will garner readers, the story is a disappointment. (Sept.)

Using Tiny Teddies, highly collectible bears, to launch a Twelve Days of Christmas marketing ploy should be a totally benign means of attracting customers for the business owners of Moosetookalook, Maine, but Liss MacCrimmon's brainchild brings in a frenzy of bear hunters—and a crazed killer—in Dunnett's lively, clean-as-a-whistle third cozy to feature the co-owner of the Scottish Emporium (after 2008's Scone Cold Dead). When the supply of Tiny Teddies wanes, Liss is approached with an offer of a new batch of these impossible-to-acquire fur balls. Knowing to steer clear of anything illegally transported from Canada, Liss declines, apparently unlike Gavin Thorne, proprietor of the Toy Box. Thorne's demise soon follows an unknown assailant's shooting an overpriced bear to stuffings. Dunnett (the pseudonym of Kathy Lynn Emerson, author of the Lady Susanna Appleton historical series) stirs smugglers, lovers and thieves into a healthy helping of foul play. (Oct.)

At the start of Fate's masterful fourth 1950s PI novel (after 2008's Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption)¸ Kristin Van Dijk, who's been tied up in a farmhouse by two silver thieves she was tracking, manages to free herself and take out a killer, later identified as a sociopathic felon, who a little earlier showed up and gunned down the two thieves, unaware of her presence. Meanwhile, word reaches Kristin's partner, Otis Millett, that his ex-wife, Dixie Logan, a former stripper known as the Dallas Firecracker, has been murdered. Dixie's last job was at a bank in Mesquite, Tex., that had been held up a few weeks before, and her body was found with that of a man who may have been one of the robbers. Kristin, a hard-as-nails heroine who's completely credible, and Otis dedicate themselves to solving Dixie's murder and sorting out whether she colluded in the bank theft. The pages will speed by for readers who enjoy gritty crime tales with plenty of flying bullets. (Sept.)

What sounded like an idyllic winter getaway at relatives' Oaxacan dude ranch turns into a bonesman's holiday for Gideon Oliver and his wife, Julie, in Edgar-winner Elkins's atmospheric 16th mystery to feature the forensic anthropologist (after 2008's Uneasy Relations). Before the Washington State couple can even sample the quesadillas at the Hacienda Encantada, their hostess, Julie's cousin, asks Gideon if he'd mind helping the local police chief by examining the mummified remains of what appears to be a murder victim. One skeleton swiftly leads to a second—and from there smack into a suspenseful puzzle whose secret someone will apparently kill to protect. Elkins partially tips his hand before hitting the home stretch of his rapidly accelerating plot, but, even so, the final revelations should leave you—if not the unflappable Bone Detective—pleasantly surprised. (Sept.)

Arruda's over-the-top fifth historical to feature photojournalist and former army nurse Jade del Cameron (after Jan. 2009's The Leopard's Prey) fails to live up to its promising concept. Accompanied by her tame cheetah, Biscuit, Jade guides an expedition up Kenya's Mount Kilimanjaro in 1920 to film a motion picture about King Solomon's son. When an African native stabs Graham Wheeler, the film's producer, then plunges the murder weapon into his own chest, Jade once again turns amateur sleuth. The official verdict on Wheeler's killing—that it was the act of a lone, now deceased mad man—doesn't satisfy Jade's American lover, Sam Featherstone, and sure enough, more violence follows. Arruda's superhuman lead, who charges a lion at one point to protect Biscuit's meal of an antelope, might gain more credibility in future exploits if she were to engage in fewer improbable heroics. (Sept.)

In Coel's absorbing if relatively sedate 14th Wind River mystery to feature Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden and Fr. John O'Malley (after 2008's The Girl with Braided Hair), ex-con Kiki Wallowingbull goes to Los Angeles to learn more about the disappearance of his great-grandfather, Charlie, who like many Native Americans in the 1920s went to Hollywood to perform in western movies. Soon after returning to Wyoming's Wind River Reservation, Kiki's murdered. Father John, just back from a Rome sabbatical, seeks to reassure Kiki's grandfather that Kiki, fresh out of rehab, wasn't killed over drugs. Meanwhile, Vicky gets a desperate call from an Arapaho claiming to have killed someone in self-defense. Vicky avoids Father John and her intense feelings toward him until their separate investigations intersect and they join forces to uncover the truth. Series fans will be satisfied as well as primed for the next opportunity to follow this pair and their uncertain future. Author tour. (Sept.)

When Canadian businessman Harold Tuttle buys property in Tipton, Vt., clear-cuts 50 acres and erects a huge egg farm, the residual problems—pollution, flies, odors, truck traffic—have area residents up in arms, including town constable Hector Bellevance, in Bredes's suspenseful third novel to feature the stubborn, principled New Englander (after 2006's The Fifth Season). A serious accident caused by Tuttle's arrogant son, Sebastian, puts Bellevance's pregnant wife in a coma. After Sebastian is found beaten to death just days later, in an ironic twist Tuttle hires Bellevance to solve the crime. Bellevance steps on the toes of federal agents and attracts the attention of assorted bad guys, including Hells Angels from Canada and a known killer. But when his 11-year-old daughter is kidnapped, nothing will dissuade Bellevance to back off until he's rescued her. Bellevance provides a fine example of the “man's gotta do what a man's gotta do” philosophy. (Sept.)

The swan nuzzling a naked woman on the cover telegraphs the Greek myth conceit of Burke's debut, a contemporary crime novel set in an unnamed Atlantic coast town. George Fuller, an investment company owner, hires PI Johnny “Blue” Heron to discover whether his son, Castor, is cheating on Beverly Whitney, his son's proper fiancée. Soon after accepting the job, Heron is accosted by the imposing chauffeur of a black limo, who invites the gumshoe inside the car to meet his boss, Beverly's father, Douglas. Douglas, who hopes to merge his investment company with Fuller's, offers Heron a bribe to get off the case. The book's lyrical, vague prologue becomes clearer once Heron happens on Castor's still warm dead body. The parallels with Greek myth become really obvious once the reader learns Castor's mother is named Leda. While Burke does a decent job with Heron's narrative voice, those not well versed in Greek myth may be left wondering how relevant it is to the murder's solution. (Sept.)

Humor, dry and wry, distinguishes James's 24th police procedural to feature Det. Chief Supt. Colin Harpur and Asst. Chief Constable Desmond Iles (after 2007's Girls). Harpur and Iles's criminal nemeses, Mansel Shale and Ralph Ember, share control of the drug trade in their unnamed British port city, which is just fine with Iles so long as their business is conducted without too much violence. When Hilaire Wilfrid Chandor announces his intention of getting a piece of the pie by leaving a body in Manse's house and stealing his art collection, all parties go on alert for Manse's response. Nothing appears hidden from either crooks or cops, who often echo each other's thinking. Meryl Goss, who comes from London determined to find her boyfriend (Graham Trove, the mysterious body left in Manse's home), provides an extra catalyst to the drama. The cynical charm of James's mysteries is evident, from Chandor's bizarre calling card to the rough justice of the ending. (Sept.)

British author Sampson (Daughters of Tintagel) introduces Suzie Loosemore Fewings, a keen family genealogist, in the engaging first in a new series. Suzie, a married mother of two, visits local parishes and libraries to discover her ancestors. When she uncovers a link with a 17th-century Southcombe churchwarden, Thomas Loosemore, which also happens to be the name of her 17-year-old son, Suzie is ecstatic. Her happiness is tempered, however, by learning Thomas Loosemore was involved in a clergyman's death just as her own son, Tom, is questioned by the police about a missing 16-year-old girl, Julie Samuel, whom Tom had briefly gone out with. Suzie soon becomes immersed in murder mysteries past and present with devastating consequences for her family. Sampson deftly weaves historic and modern-day crimes in a cerebral yet exciting tale of guilt, innocence and circumstance. (Sept.)

Six months after a plague wipes out most of the world's population, several survivors follow the advice of a mysterious stranger and leave their mansion hideout to seek Bar None, the last bar on Earth, in this brief but enjoyable horror-fantasy tale. The travelers face a hard journey, dodging strange creatures and hostile survivors in an ever-changing natural environment unfettered by humankind. Lebbon (Dawn) indulges in almost laughable, flowery descriptions of numerous beers and ales (“Marston's Double Drop, a golden ale with a fruity malt aroma, a bright and yeasty taste with a bitter, caramel finish, cool going down and calm as it dulled my senses”) that take up more than their share of space, but this is nevertheless a fun, engaging, exceptionally strange and refreshingly original tale for fans of postapocalyptic fiction. (Sept.)

Author-activist Schulman (The Child) painstakingly crafts this meditation on the trajectory of society in the 21st century, but it may serve better as a warning than a novel. When New York's new mayor slowly transforms the city into a utopia through social reforms, the effects spiral out over a poor copywriter, the copywriter's new boss, his girlfriends, their lovers, their lovers' children, etc., in a narrative Möbius strip worthy of an art house film. Despite clever word craft, poetic political satire and biting humor on every page, vague characterization and a meandering plot push this polemic too far toward the abstract and oblique. Even the most adventurous and prose-focused readers will struggle to engage with Schulman's discontinuous style at this length; the only hope is to treat it as poetry, or perhaps modern art. (Sept.)

Those familiar with five-time Hugo winner Resnick only from his recent comic PI novels (Stalking the Vampire, etc.) will be delighted by this collection of short fiction demonstrating his versatility. “The Lord of the Jungle” features a would-be Tarzan who takes refuge in Africa to evade creditors and build a Communist gorilla nation. “Two Hunters in Manhattan” pits New York City Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt against Dracula. The standout stories share the theme of a hunter's obsessive quest for mysterious prey: in “Hunting the Snark,” a guide tracks a powerful predator that's been consuming members of his expedition, while the short but powerful “The Soul Eater” follows a galactic hunter's Ahab-like pursuit of a giant energy being. Resnick packs a wide variety of genre tales full of surprising twists and turns. (Sept.)

In this anthology featuring Liverpudlian horror writers' stories of their hometown, first-time editor Mackenzie attempts to draw deeply from a shallow well, with uneven and frustrating results. Clive Barker's three stories include “The Forbidden,” about the unnerving relationship between residents of a tenement housing project and a local urban legend. Ramsey Campbell contributes five stories and one autobiographical essay; perhaps the best is “The Man in the Underpass,” which depicts the heart-wrenching results of a neglected child's sexual curiosity. Peter Atkins's four stories, however, lack the ambition and nuance of the rest. Liverpool is rarely used as more than a backdrop, and does not serve to unify the collection. Most of these stories are reprints that PS readers will have seen elsewhere, leaving this unsatisfying effort without a market. (Sept.)

Even new readers daunted by 40 pages of appendixes and a two-page family tree will love the tender romance in the 20th installment of Feehan's Carpathians series. Benign blood-drinking Carpathians turn into evil vampires if they fail to find their destined life mates. Broken and left for dead after a family betrayal, Ivory Malinov gradually heals, becoming a loner and dedicated vampire slayer. Razvan's evil grandfather, the mage Xavier, forced him to commit unspeakable deeds against fellow Carpathians. Ivory discovers Razvan near death, and after realizing they are life mates, she nurses him back to health and they plot to combine forces and defeat Xavier. The slow-to-trust Ivory fights her growing feelings for Razvan, whose self-hatred juxtaposes brilliantly with his innate gentle nature. Fans looking for a departure from Feehan's usual alpha male heroes will enjoy this lengthy but powerful tale. (Sept.)

Lamplighter's powerful debut draws inspiration from Shakespeare and world mythology, infused with humor and pure imagination. Four centuries after the events of The Tempest, Prospero's daughter Miranda runs Prospero Inc., a company with immense influence in the supernatural world. When she discovers a mysterious warning from her father, who has gone missing, Miranda sets forth accompanied by Mab, an Aerie Spirit manifested as a hard-boiled PI, to warn her far-flung, enigmatic siblings that the mysterious Shadowed Ones plan to steal their staffs of power. Every encounter brings new questions, new problems and a greater sense of what's at stake. Featuring glimpses into a rich and wondrous world of the unseen, this is no ordinary urban fantasy, but a treasure trove of nifty ideas and intriguing revelations. A cliffhanger ending will leave readers panting for sequels. (Sept.)

Serling (Journeys to the Twilight Zone, etc.) returns to The Twilight Zone, the most famous work of her late husband, Rod Serling (1924–1975), with this inspired anthology. Though constrained by the surprise ending format of the original show, Kelley Armstrong's “A Haunted House of Her Own” is pleasantly creepy; Alan Brennert's “Puowaina” is a well-executed period piece; and the murderous protagonist of Tad Williams's “Ants” nicely demonstrates self-destructive hubris. The other entries are less satisfying: William F. Wu offers tepid baby boomer nostalgia in “On the Road,” Carole Nelson Douglas provides telegraphed foreboding in “Truth or Consequences,” and Robert J. Serling's “Ghost Writer” includes a painfully obvious and banal final twist. While largely inoffensive and faithful to the Twilight Zoneformat, this anthology is primarily of interest to hardcore fans. (Sept.)

Teppo's urban fantasy debut explores a dramatic premise bogged down by pretentious passages of overblown monologue. Landis Markham, magick user and manipulator of the world's energies, spots a human soul possessing a deer. He follows it, intrigued, and soon lands in the midst of a power struggle that could destroy the world. Using a chain of captured souls to enhance his abilities, Markham chases an evil magus around Seattle and its suburbs as he pieces together a complex plot and continues his relentless fight to save innocents and heal the darkness in his soul. Tighter writing could have made this a page-turner and created more desire for the inevitable sequels, but Teppo beats metaphors into the ground and segments of purple prose mire the plot and distract from the strong characters. (Sept.)

Michaels (Becket's Last Stand) debuts the Daughtry family series with a straightforward Regency-era romance between childhood friends. With the untimely death of his uncle and two cousins, Rafael “Rafe” Daughtry, in France with the British army, unexpectedly inherits a dukedom. War hero Rafe arrives at his boyhood home of Ashurst Hall to encounter Miss Charlotte Seavers. Charlotte, who has forsaken her childhood nickname of Charlie, is still spunky and strong willed but far from the hoyden “menace” he remembered. Rafe finds her boldness admirable, but as the attraction between the pair blossoms, he's disturbed by her skittish manner, especially when he discovers that Charlotte was formerly engaged to his odious cousin Harold. The swift-moving plot and an interesting subplot involving attempted murder are tarnished by a lack of character development, resulting in a merely average read. (Sept.)

A shape-changing priestess and a time-traveling relic hunter quest together for the Holy Grail in Kearney's far-fetched series debut. Lady Cael, high priestess of the planet Pendragon, is the only woman of her generation who can shift forms from human to dragon. Lucan Roarke is from a future Earth where most of the population is sterile. To save his people, Lucan travels to Pendragon seeking the legendary Grail. When Pendragon's military frames Lucan and Cael for the murder of their colleagues,the two are forced to depend on each other to recover the Grail and survive. Kearney (Dancing with Fire) writes a credibly (and explicitly) passionate and rough romance, but factual errors and a mishmash of myth will jar readers familiar with Arthurian legend, leaving this solely for fans of sexy space opera intrigue. (Sept.)

Brant's debut, the first installment in the Mindhunters trilogy, begins with the standard short clip from the POV of a serial killer, followed by the introduction of the standard burned-out, ex-alcoholic tough detective, Ryne Robel. To find the killer, Robel reluctantly teams up with elfin criminologist Abbie Phillips. As Abbie and Ryne begin to piece together the clues, crossed wires turn into sparks. Though the novel opens with a generic structure, the writing is vivid and strong. Brant does an excellent job of building the partnership and attraction between Abbie and Ryne, and clearly enjoys showing off their razzle-dazzle police procedural techniques and banter. Readers looking for romance may be put off by the killer's grim torture of his female victims, but suspense fans will love the unexpected twist and pulse-pounding climax. (Sept.)

The first graphic novel written by The Colbert Report's Eichler is a light comedy about racism, with a hint of retooled movie proposal about it. It concerns a pair of half-brothers—square family man Tim Johnston and a spaced-out, trepanned loose cannon who calls himself “Free”—whose inheritance of their father's “museum of curiosities” includes the preserved, stuffed body of an African man in a loincloth and bone necklace, holding the remnants of a spear. Naturally, they want to get rid of the “Warrior,” as Tim prefers to call him—but getting rid of human remains turns out not to be as easy as driving them to a museum. Naturally, all kinds of uncomfortable associations about race and history burble up. Naturally, hijinks ensue. Bertozzi's artwork—a slightly cruder, much less detailed variation on the look of his graphic novel The Salon—unobtrusively whisks the story along; there's also a nuttier, bolder style for a series of dream sequences in which the “Warrior” becomes the focal point for all of Tim's anxieties. Even when the plot seems a little too formulaic (will everyone learn something by the end?), Eichler's crisp, snappy dialogue keeps it percolating. (Sept.)

The 10th in Geary's ongoing, multi–Eisner-nominated historical murder series, Famous Players tells the story of one of the first major Hollywood scandals. Silent film actor/director William Desmond Taylor was killed in his home in February 1922, not long after popular actor Fatty Arbuckle was also accused of murder. Geary presents the facts of the case in a series of historical chapters, offering up bungled investigative tactics, dead-end leads and a colorful cast of characters, all for the reader to analyze. His quirky b&w ink drawings are full of expression, recalling the melodrama of silent films and giving life to such characters as actresses Mary Miles Minter and Mabel Normand and other early film business insiders. The narrative presents this murder, along with the Arbuckle case, as the beginning of Hollywood's lurid history, which he evokes with a series of plates depicting actors whose tragic deaths are noted beneath. By including not only the Black Dahlia but Natalie Wood, River Phoenix and Phil Hartman, he drives home the point that Hollywood has never escaped its dark past. (Aug.)

Originally published between 1988 and 1993, Marder's adorably mad Tales of Beanworld are collected under the title “A Gift Comes!” but could have just as easily been called “Awww!” Marder introduces a new element to his tightly constructed clockwork universe, the aptly named Cuties. Small, round bundles of peapodlike sweetness, the Cuties live in the Pod'l'pool, where they must be constantly fed and watched by the stick-limbed adult Beans. Frequently this entails the world's designated hero, the impetuous Mr. Spook, leading raids on the Hoi-Polloi people to capture the Cutie-sustaining substance Chow. It's an exciting, packed volume, featuring heroic escapades with Mr. Spook, choreographed musical numbers and otherworldly adventures involving the cross-dimensional Goofy Service Jerks (not to be confused with the Goofy Surveillance Jerks). Though Marder's surreal but compact b&w drawings have the anarchic feel of 1970s underground comix, nothing here is random or missing. It's a closed ecosystem, where each individual and element has its place, all laid out in a helpful foreword with map and glossary. An extraordinary world-builder, Marder is also a bright-eyed comic storyteller who doesn't mind sprinkling a little magic and cuteness amid the good citizenship lessons. (Aug.)

X-Men is renowned for being one of the most girl-friendly super hero comics franchises, so a shojo (girl's) manga “re-boot” of the series is not that far-fetched. The conceit of seeing the X-Men redrawn as supercute boys, or in the case of Beast, redrawn as an adorable human-size badgerlike thing, works without a hitch. 15-year-old Kitty Pryde, who has the mutant ability to slip through walls, enrolls in Xaviar Academy, where she meets classic X-men characters, most still in their teen years. By some unexplained twist of fate that could only happen in shojo, Pryde is the only female student (Storm is a teacher). This makes the formerly insecure girl very popular with her peers, so much so that she is asked to join the Hellfire Club, which is hilariously reimagined as a parody of Ouran High School Host Club rather than a sinister organization of wealthy elites. Telgemeier and Roman deliver a delightful script that will appeal to old fans while being friendly toward new readers or fans of the X-Men films. The art by Anzu (The Reformed) is over-the-top shojo parody, with lots of screentone and flowers. (Aug.)

Following the “death” of Bruce Wayne in last year's “Batman: R.I.P.” arc comes Gaiman's loving eulogy not just to Batman but to the Batman of each era since the character's debut. Bolstered by slick art from Kubert (Batman; Captain America), Gaiman's lyrical chops are in fine form, weaving a surreal wake in which characters from Batman's history take turns relating what he meant to them, and their takes on the Dark Knight and the dangerous microcosm he fought for and eventually purportedly “died” to protect. Although this is obviously a love letter from one of the comics medium's premiere talents, the volume will appeal more to readers well-versed in Batman's continuity than Gaiman's normal legion of fans As the finished story only amounts to two issues of material, this hardcover is padded out with lesser—though not badly written by any means—stories teaming Gaiman with Simon Bisley, Mark Buckingham, Kevin Nowlan and Bernie Mireault, plus a sketchbook by Kubert. (July)

Two collections that tie into grim epic fantasy series.

These 10 shadowy short stories take place in the same world as Cook's 1980s Dread Empire sword and sorcery novels. “Ghost Stalk,” “Call for the Dead” and the previously unpublished “Hell Forge” form an episodic tale of a damned crew's quest to escape hell. The other stories stand alone but share settings and characters, including the despotic empire itself, which lurks as an unseen but omnipresent menace. In this gloomy world, all are subject to the whims of those above them, quests rarely end happily and comic elements are limited to gallows humor. Fans of Fritz Leiber and Steven Erikson will enjoy these unjustly overlooked tales. (Sept.)

This collection of edgy and violent narratives tied to Erikson's Malazon Empire series pushes the boundaries of epic fantasy with morally ambiguous protagonists, bloody altercations and gritty world-building. Bauchelain, a cultured necromancer; Korbal Broach, his eunuch companion with an intense desire to procreate; and their luckless manservant, Emancipor Reese, find themselves embroiled in a murder mystery in “Blood Follows,” a shipboard battle against unearthly powers in “The Lees of Laughter's End,” and the politics of a fascist kingdom in “The Healthy Dead.” Through short, clipped chapters, a focus on gore-filled action and an economy of words, Erikson moves the plots quickly. A bit of ironic dark humor adds needed levity to otherwise disturbing, even sordid stories enthralled with the seedy side of human nature. (Sept.)